Want to be a great writer? Here is how
You don’t have to be great at grammar
“I’ am made of leaves. Now. It was not always so..”
Once I was just a boy. But now. I am made of leaves. Like comings and goings. But. Mostly leaves.
Sometimes the wind whistles when she blows through. A rustle of longing for something that has left or is no longer here. Leaves.”
That’s from Roman Newell’s writing and its beautiful.
The guy writes with style and fluidity, he makes writing sound almost musical.
Listen to this;
“They say to write when you are ready and it is ready and it will come. But how do you know when it is ready? Perhaps the leaves.
When they are dark enough. Dangling by their nubs……..”
And this;
“I think of Kafka sometimes, crouched in the corner with his antennae, while they repeat the same trite eloquence in boring permutations: life isn’t fair. Which means you stay a cockroach in the corner of your room until your dinner tray arrives.
And what does it teach you? Life is not easy for insects. They will love you so long as you appear to be what they want.
So when you metamorphoses it is best to do so quietly beneath the covers or in a closet in a personal bedroom……..”
Master fluidity of words and you will write beautifully
Roman has a rare mastery with words. Like Picasso, He brings to life common words that would have otherwise sat discarded by the roadside and weaves them into a work of art.
His writing is beautiful, just beautiful….
That kind of writing is uncommon.
Yet it grabs readers by the scruffs, rips out their emotions, and shakes them into new realities. They just can’t have enough of it.
Like the fresh morning breeze, it feels like cool air filling up your lungs and awakening your senses to life.
The secret ingredient to great writing is fluidity.
The ability to be versatile and familiar at the same time.
Great writers just like great speakers know how to undulate and use cadence. They comfortably apply all stylistic features to achieve a near musical resonance with their readers.
Use this stylistic feature to capture your reader
Stylistic features are mostly uncommon. Employed only by the initiated and the skillful. Here is one that will make you a better writer.
“Having power makes dictatorship isolated; isolation breeds insecurity; insecurity breeds suspicion and fear; suspicion and fear breed violence.”
Great speakers and great writers take words that end one sentence to begin the next sentence.
The term for this is “anadiplosis.”
The ability to stylistically exaggerate the transition of old information to new information.
Here is another;
“Meaning requires content, content requires time, time requires resistance.”
And another;
“If you didn’t grow up like I did then you don’t know, and if you don’t know then it is probably better you don’t judge.”
Do you resonate with that?
Here is Dostoevsky in his famous book Crime and Punishment,:
“…if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once. Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!
Reading that, don’t you just want to live life?
If you lived in the 80s you may remember Jesse Jackson — he was the fiery black presidential contender long before Obama came on the scene, remember his 1988 Democratic National Convention Address?
“Suffering breeds character; character breeds faith; in the end, faith will not disappoint.”
He plucked that right out of the Bible, but isn’t it beautiful?
Sentences that well up forgotten emotions
Here is one that welled up deep emotions as I read and reflected on the cruelty of poverty.
You might relate to this if you’ve ever been homeless.
“It sucks to be poor, and it sucks to feel that you somehow deserve to be poor. You start believing that you’re poor because you’re stupid and ugly.
And then you start believing that you’re stupid and ugly because you’re Indian. And because you’re Indian, you start believing that you’re destined to be poor.
It’s an ugly circle and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Poverty doesn’t give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor.” — Sherman Alexie,
And have you read this excerpt by the British Indian writer who awakened the ire of Islam Salman Rushdie?
“In the secret grassy quadrangle of the Gardens, I crawled before I could walk, I walked before I could run, I ran before I could dance, I danced before I could sing, and I danced and sang until I learned stillness and silence and stood motionless and listening at the Gardens’ heart, on summer evenings sparkling with fireflies and became, at least in my own opinion, an artist . . . a would-be writer of films.”
Did that leave you gasping for more?
Become a seeker of good sentences
Skilled writers and editors seek out good sentences wherever they can find them.
To write good sentences, you need to read good sentences. Read other writers if for no other reason than to marvel at the skill with which they can put together the sort of sentences that move us to tears.
Then disassemble and reassemble them much like a mechanic taking the engine apart to learn of its different components.
Embrace this craft-like approach to reading.
Pay attention not just to a passage’s content but to its composition, to how it was put together word by word, sentence by sentence.
Study how paragraphs are constructed, and how their various parts work together to communicate information clearly, effectively, and sometimes beautifully.
Your writing will improve. Your rhythm will improve. Your readers will be happy and you will be on your way to being great.
Finally:
In conclusion muse on this;
“Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears.” —
That’s by Jane Kenyon.
And it’s enough…!
